If I could nominate a couple of people for a Nobel prize on the basis of doing one good thing ...
..... it would be Arvind Kejriwal and Uma Preman.
Who you may be saying. Well neither is some Asperger's syndrome Scandinavian girl, who's apparently the flavour of the month, and for whom her education seems to be easily sacrificed.
Arvind Kejriwal's a man who very much believes in education and who is also the Chief Minister of the Indian capital Delhi, and leader of the regional Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), a regional start-up, who took charge of the city of Delhi five years ago. As such, his party took responsibility for 1,000 state schools, attended by more than 1.5 million students in a city of over 20 million people.
They took the brave decision to devote around a quarter of their government's $5.8bn (£4.40bn) budget into the state run education sector, and achieved the most spectacular results. On average India's states, spend 14.8 per cent of their budgets on education, against their near 25 per cent expenditure.
The assumption in India is generally that only poor children go to the often slovenly and badly run state schools, and that he rich and middle class prefer to send their children to private schools ... even the comparatively poor, would scrimp and send their oldest boy to a private school, while sending their girls and other boys to the state schools. Shailendra Sharma, an education advisor to Mr Kejriwal's government said that "Anything free in India is perceived to be substandard."
Consequently Delhi's state run schools are mainly attended by the city's underclass and children of poorer migrants, with poor exam results, and and even poorer expectation levels .... that is until the ambitious Mr Kejriwal took charge.
He has transformed the state school system, by some very simple but well aimed changes:
The results are there for all to see, with some 96% of the 12th class students from state-run schools passing the school-leaving exam, compared to 93% from private schools in 2019.
So spectacular have been the results of the reforms that there has been a substantial expansion of capacity to cater to a growing number of students with 34% of Delhi's 4.4 million school-going children now attending government schools, and their numbers are increasing. By the end of the year (2020), Delhi should have 55 new schools and 20,000 additional classrooms.
The only fly in the ointment has been the issue of 'separation' which has been challenged in the courts by a champion of the 'inclusive' methods who doesn't care that this method failed the poorest children for decades. All the evidence of several independent surveys have found that Indian school children's reading and writing skills, often don't match the class they are in. A 2018 study found that nearly 73% of children in class three, could not read class two lessons .... but since when have education activists ever actually cared about the ruin their experiments have wrought on children's prospects?
Standing for re-election Mr Kejriwal has told the electorate "We've worked hard to improve our schools, the education system. Who will take care of the education of your children, if you vote for any other party? Just give it a thought."
Now this is India, so I don't know if his party have ruled effectively, but any party that has helped so many children raise their expectations and aspirations can't be all bad ... So I for one am not surprised that the electorate of Delhi listened to their children and give Mr Kejriwal and his Aam Aadmi Party another vote of confidence.
Any politician who banks on the slow results of education to prove his worth is a brave soul and deserves to succeed.
As for Uma Preman, well she's the unhappy victim an arranged marriage to a man 26 years older, who had already got a wife. It started badly with no ceremony, just her mother handing her over to her 'husband' "My mother told me that I was now Preman's property". Her new owner, "told me that I was his wife but I had no rights over his property." He also said that she was his second wife, but she quickly learned that she was actually his fourth. It turned out that he actually just wanted a carer as he had a severe form of tuberculosis.
"I felt worthless. I just accepted my fate and went with Preman." Thus began an evermore arduous rounds of accompanying this man to various hospitals in between being locked in to his house. His condition worsened and after seven years he died. He had apparently changed his mind and he left her comfortably off.
However during all those hospital visits, she had found that she could help the poor and illiterate, whom she has observed were often unable to get proper medical treatment, not only because they couldn't afford it, but also because they didn't have the right information - they didn't know what treatments and facilities were available. She had started helping them, filling in forms for them, guiding them to the right doctors, and sometimes just listening to their problems.
Now that she had independent needs, she realised that this help had been vital after she started getting phone calls from people whom she had helped and others who had heard of her help. So she opened the the first Santhi Medical Information Centre and in order to help she had to travel across India gathering information because in the late 1990's the internet wasn't yet widely available in India, and the hospitals never replied to her letters.
Now, not only does she run information centres, but has raised enough funds to open 20 dialysis centres across India after finding that there was a national shortage. All her work is non profit making, and has helped many thousands of poor Indians.
So both Arvind Kejriwal and Uma Preman have lived Mahatma Ghandi's saying that "you have to be the change you want to see".
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| Arvind Kejriwal ... Has Done Something Good |
..... it would be Arvind Kejriwal and Uma Preman.
Who you may be saying. Well neither is some Asperger's syndrome Scandinavian girl, who's apparently the flavour of the month, and for whom her education seems to be easily sacrificed.
Arvind Kejriwal's a man who very much believes in education and who is also the Chief Minister of the Indian capital Delhi, and leader of the regional Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), a regional start-up, who took charge of the city of Delhi five years ago. As such, his party took responsibility for 1,000 state schools, attended by more than 1.5 million students in a city of over 20 million people.
They took the brave decision to devote around a quarter of their government's $5.8bn (£4.40bn) budget into the state run education sector, and achieved the most spectacular results. On average India's states, spend 14.8 per cent of their budgets on education, against their near 25 per cent expenditure.
The assumption in India is generally that only poor children go to the often slovenly and badly run state schools, and that he rich and middle class prefer to send their children to private schools ... even the comparatively poor, would scrimp and send their oldest boy to a private school, while sending their girls and other boys to the state schools. Shailendra Sharma, an education advisor to Mr Kejriwal's government said that "Anything free in India is perceived to be substandard."
Consequently Delhi's state run schools are mainly attended by the city's underclass and children of poorer migrants, with poor exam results, and and even poorer expectation levels .... that is until the ambitious Mr Kejriwal took charge.
He has transformed the state school system, by some very simple but well aimed changes:
- Classrooms have been renovated, with pained walls and Smart-looking desks and are themed.
- Toilets are scrubbed regularly, and playgrounds cleaned.
- CCTV cameras in classrooms to monitor children's behaviour.
- Computers/tablets allow for digital learning.
- School libraries are well-stocked.
- Science labs actually function.
- Separating children by ability so that classes are streamed according to ability. Indian state schools often follow the 'inclusive model' meaning the brightest could only learn at the speed of the stupidest children in the class ... sound familiar?
The results are there for all to see, with some 96% of the 12th class students from state-run schools passing the school-leaving exam, compared to 93% from private schools in 2019.
So spectacular have been the results of the reforms that there has been a substantial expansion of capacity to cater to a growing number of students with 34% of Delhi's 4.4 million school-going children now attending government schools, and their numbers are increasing. By the end of the year (2020), Delhi should have 55 new schools and 20,000 additional classrooms.
The only fly in the ointment has been the issue of 'separation' which has been challenged in the courts by a champion of the 'inclusive' methods who doesn't care that this method failed the poorest children for decades. All the evidence of several independent surveys have found that Indian school children's reading and writing skills, often don't match the class they are in. A 2018 study found that nearly 73% of children in class three, could not read class two lessons .... but since when have education activists ever actually cared about the ruin their experiments have wrought on children's prospects?
Standing for re-election Mr Kejriwal has told the electorate "We've worked hard to improve our schools, the education system. Who will take care of the education of your children, if you vote for any other party? Just give it a thought."
Now this is India, so I don't know if his party have ruled effectively, but any party that has helped so many children raise their expectations and aspirations can't be all bad ... So I for one am not surprised that the electorate of Delhi listened to their children and give Mr Kejriwal and his Aam Aadmi Party another vote of confidence.
Any politician who banks on the slow results of education to prove his worth is a brave soul and deserves to succeed.
As for Uma Preman, well she's the unhappy victim an arranged marriage to a man 26 years older, who had already got a wife. It started badly with no ceremony, just her mother handing her over to her 'husband' "My mother told me that I was now Preman's property". Her new owner, "told me that I was his wife but I had no rights over his property." He also said that she was his second wife, but she quickly learned that she was actually his fourth. It turned out that he actually just wanted a carer as he had a severe form of tuberculosis.
"I felt worthless. I just accepted my fate and went with Preman." Thus began an evermore arduous rounds of accompanying this man to various hospitals in between being locked in to his house. His condition worsened and after seven years he died. He had apparently changed his mind and he left her comfortably off.
However during all those hospital visits, she had found that she could help the poor and illiterate, whom she has observed were often unable to get proper medical treatment, not only because they couldn't afford it, but also because they didn't have the right information - they didn't know what treatments and facilities were available. She had started helping them, filling in forms for them, guiding them to the right doctors, and sometimes just listening to their problems.
 |
| Uma Preman and her Santhi Medical Information Centre |
Now that she had independent needs, she realised that this help had been vital after she started getting phone calls from people whom she had helped and others who had heard of her help. So she opened the the first Santhi Medical Information Centre and in order to help she had to travel across India gathering information because in the late 1990's the internet wasn't yet widely available in India, and the hospitals never replied to her letters.
Now, not only does she run information centres, but has raised enough funds to open 20 dialysis centres across India after finding that there was a national shortage. All her work is non profit making, and has helped many thousands of poor Indians.
So both Arvind Kejriwal and Uma Preman have lived Mahatma Ghandi's saying that "you have to be the change you want to see".
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